Rayney verdict to be appealed

THE NSW Director of Public Prosecutions will appeal the acquittal of Perth barrister Lloyd Rayney on a charge that he murdered his estranged wife Corryn.

In what was dubbed the ‘‘trial of the decade’’, Mr Rayney was found not guilty of killing his wife.

Corryn Rayney, a former registrar at the Supreme Court of Western Australia and mother of two, disappeared after her weekly bootscooting class on August 7, 2007.

Former Northern Territory chief justice Brian Martin presided over the judge-alone trial for 44 days, ultimately finding the case against the former barrister could not be proven.

Instead, he said Ms Rayney was essentially a victim of a random attack outside her home before she was buried head-first in a grave at Kings Park and her car dumped nearby.

Mr Rayney told reporters on the day he was found not guilty that it was a "terrible tragedy'' his daughters still did not know who killed their mother.

"The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Lloyd Babb SC, has directed an appeal in the matter of Rayney," a statement from his office this afternoon said.

"Documents were lodged today with the Court of Appeal, Western Australia. No further comment will be issued."

Mr Rayney has kept a low profile since his acquittal but told reporters on the day he was found not guilty that it was a ‘‘terrible tragedy’’ his daughters still did not know who killed their mother.

Following Mr Rayney’s acquittal, many in the legal profession publicly stated they believed a retrial was unlikely because, for an appeal to be successful, lawyers would have to find a misapplication of the principles of the law.

Tom Percy QC, one of Perth’s leading lawyers and a close friend of Mr Rayney, told Fairfax Radio on Thursday, before the appeal was lodged, that he did not think there would be an appeal.

‘‘The judgment was watertight factually,’’ he said.

‘‘It was so tight legally that I would doubt there is any avenue of appeal they would be able to pursue.

‘‘It is not a question of cost, because the government has unlimited resources at its disposal.

‘‘I would have thought the government being a model litigant would have instituted an appeal in the first week rather than leave it to the eleventh hour.’’

Another senior legal figure in Perth, John Hammond, said he could see no gaps in Justice Martin’s legal reasoning.

But it seems the DPP believes there are grounds for an appeal, though it has not revealed what they are.

Mr Rayney’s case was WA’s most expensive trial and required the judge and prosecutor to be flown in from interstate to avoid bias because the Rayneys were well known in Perth’s legal community.

There’s now uncertainty surrounding a defamation lawsuit against WA police regarding the head of the major crime squad in 2007, Detective Senior Sergeant Jack Lee, who told journalists shortly after Ms Rayney’s death that her estranged husband was the ‘‘prime’’ and ‘‘only’’ suspect in her murder.

Mr Rayney’s ability to practise as a lawyer also remains up in the air after Justice Martin found that the barrister had engaged in ‘‘discreditable conduct’’ by lying to a magistrate, swearing a false affidavit and arranging a phone tap to monitor his wife’s calls.

Both the Legal Practice Board and Barristers’ Board were reviewing Mr Rayney’s privilege to practise law before the appeal was announced.

The WA Bar Association, of which Mr Rayney is a member, could strip him of his membership but it cannot prevent him from practising as a barrister.